Essential Reading

Jack Bernstein was a rarity, an American Zionist who ‘returned’ to Israel, not for a holiday but to live and die in Israel building a Jewish nation. What makes him almost one of a kind, however, was his ability to see through the sham of Zionism

In Andernach about 50,000 prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets; many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement.

Fact or fantasy? Admiral Richard B. Byrd’s account of his flight over the North Pole and discovery of a “land beyond the poles” is legend. For those still unfamiliar with it we present his classic account and leave you to decide

Some say that Prince Michael of Albany has a more legitimate claim to the throne of England than the Windsors. Are they right? And why are the Windsors and the mainstream media delberately ignoring him?

Press TV – January 24, 2012

India has agreed to pay the price of crude oil it imports from Iran in gold, which makes it the first country to drop the US dollar for purchasing the Iranian oil.

According to a report published by DEBKAfile news website, unnamed sources have stressed that China is also expected to follow suit.

India and China take about one million barrels per day (bpd), or 40 percent of Iran’s total exports of 2.5 million bpd and both of them have huge reserves of gold.

The report added that by trading in gold, New Delhi and Beijing enable Tehran to bypass the upcoming freeze on its Central Bank’s assets and the oil embargo which the European Union’s foreign ministers agreed to impose on Monday, January 23.

The EU currently buys around 20 percent of Iran’s oil exports.

On the other hand, experts say the vast sums involved in these transactions are expected to boost the price of gold and depress the value of the dollar on world markets.

“An Indian delegation visited Tehran last week to discuss payment options in view of the new sanctions. The two sides were reported to have agreed that payment for the oil purchased would be partly in yen and partly in rupees. The switch to gold was kept [in the] dark,” the report stated.

India is Iran’s second largest customer after China, and purchases around USD 12-billion-a-year worth of Iranian crude, or about 12 percent of its consumption.

Delhi is to execute its transactions, the report said, through two state-owned banks: the Calcutta-based UCO Bank, whose board of directors is made up of the Indian government, the Reserve Bank of India representatives, and Halk Bankasi (Peoples Bank) – Turkey’s seventh largest bank which is owned by the government.

US President Barack Obama signed into law, on December 31, 2011, new sanctions which seek to penalize other countries for importing Iran’s oil or doing transaction with Islamic Republic’s Central Bank.

Foreign ministers of the European Union also imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil imports over the country’s peaceful nuclear program during their Monday meeting in Brussels.

The sanctions involve an immediate ban on all new oil contracts with Iran and a freeze on the assets of the country’s Central Bank within the EU.

Tehran has warned that the embargo will have negative consequences, such as increasing the oil price.